President Obama has thrown his hat in the ring for the role of Black continent’s major investor and tutor inviting 50 African leaders for an unprecedented US-Africa summit. Obama’s biggest African initiative is seen as an attempt to outsmart China which has secured leading position on the continent with its multi-million investments.
Amine Laghidi, General Manager for Africa North Star Group; Mikhail Margelov, Russia’s President Special Envoy to Africa and Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Council of Federation; David Ochami, Senior reporter at the Standard Group, Nairobi, Kenya; Andrei Fyodorov, the former Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, the Director of the Center for Political Research Foundation; Andrei Urnov, Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Africa, and also the former Russia’s Ambassador to Namibia shared their opinions with Radio VR.
The US has already been investing in Africa anyway, especially with the humanitarian aid and so on. How is this different now? How is this fund to finance the infrastructure, how is this investment in Africa different now?
Amine Laghidi: Your question actually has many of the key elements of the answer. If you’d allow me, I would like to draw my answer over to the points: one – what Africa really needs right now; the second – what the US is aiming at right now; and the third, since I'm from Morocco – what Morocco is trying to build also.
So, the first thing, in a summarizing manner – what Africa needs? Africa has two drivers of the performance, two drivers of the development. First is its population and mainly its population growth. Second, its natural resources that have been attracting powers to it over the past century.
So, the population growth. Before even talking about industrialization, before even talking about the economic development, population needs food, which refer us automatically to agriculture and also to food security. And this is a very important element right now for Africa, especially with the climate change.
The second element is about a sustainable model of development. Africa has always been looked at as the warehouse of the world in terms of mining and energy. And this actually needs to be ceased right now. And one of the best ways of how to do so is to build a sustainable model. The sustainable model includes many things. It first of all includes infrastructures, mainly ports, airports and railways also.
Another element that Africa needs right now is energy. It is still unbelievable to see that a continent that is exporting so much of row energy in terms of gas, petrol, oil etc. is dependent on the import of the refined petrol and till today doesn’t have a sustainable model for the production of electricity. Another issue is about water and so on.
And all that cannot be achieved, no development can be achieved if we do not have two things. One thing is the human element. It is about securing a leadership pipeline. And a very important element is women. It is also the democratization, but a democracy adapted to Africa.
And a very important element to also understand is the local specificities. While offering a global model, it should be applicable on the ground, without forgetting the issue of security. Unfortunately, we have been followed with the negative interest.
What is happening in Africa right now? The governments don’t have neither the tools nor the ways, nor even the money and the knowhow how to track the terrorist groups that are becoming transnational and transcontinental with the huge means. And today terrorists go together with narcotics trafficking, weapons trafficking, while some states fail to even make a commitment for the regional collaboration. And this is something that needs to cease in order to offer a sustainable business environment.
Now, in all that, our country – Morocco – (from where I am and I'm proud to be) has tried to build a sustainable model. Thanks to its stability, thanks also to the clear policy of His Majesty King Mohammed VI who actually has a lot of engagement in Africa, who believes in Africa and who was the first African leader to say it very clearly.
He stated it very clearly this year in Abijan, Ivory Coast. He said that the years of occupation, the years of colonization are over. Today Africa actually has to build a model and to count on itself. And today Morocco is offering a very interesting sustainable model of development.
We are already sharing our knowledge, because it is not about selling, it is about sharing our knowledge with the African continent in terms of technology, technologies adapted to the needs of Africa, in terms of infrastructure, of services such as banking etc.
If you don’t mind, I would like to make a comparison complementary with the Africa summit that has just actually finished, that happened form the 4th to the 6th in the US. This summit, let’s be honest, was actually kind of a success and President Obama used the word “extraordinary”. And actually it was.
You try to have 50 leaders of the African countries in one space to talk together, but also to talk to the American administration and try to build a homogeneous model. They believe that Africa needs to homogeneous model and Africa needs a collaborative approach, whether in terms of politics or in terms of economy.
And when I looked into the details of the agenda of this meeting, some of the issues that have been risen, have already been addressed, such as the agriculture, such as the security, also the leadership pipeline. So, we can say that it is a success.
This is a new way of how to look at Africa. Not anymore, as I said earlier, as at a warehouse, but also to look at it as at a continent that has the right for the development and that also has the tools for the development, and not just as at a continent apart from the world economy.
And I heard what your guests were saying about the sustainable business model and also the competition with China. Well, I’ve lived in Africa, I’ve been a general manager for a big multinational company, for more than 12 African countries and I lived there.
Believe me, the Chinese model is not actually the most perfect right now. It is a model that doesn’t respect the local specificities, it is not into a sustainability. On the other side, the scale of the American multinationalism is so big, that it doesn’t allow them to have specific strategies for each country, for each region.
So, the idea is about finding a common element, which is one to all of Africa. And this is where Morocco comes in, I believe, because Morocco has the strong ties with Africa, with the US, but is also open for other partnerships.
Morocco has been the first country to recognize the US has economic and diplomatic ties with it. We have been the first country in all of Africa to have the free trade agreement with them. And also, today, it is the first country, after the success of His Majesty with the US, to have a facilitation agreement in terms of the free trade agreement with the US, which allows us to be a door in and a door out to Africa for the US companies.
But, at the same time, we have an excellent and strong, and historical, and economic ties with Africa. Let’s not forget that Morocco is the biggest investor in Africa from Africa and we are investing in sustainability. Our companies go there not for a one spot short operation, we go there for a very long term.
In that sense, it is actually very important to understand that it is the way how to value the African products, the African resources and how to help the African countries to develop themselves. And this model can only contribute to everybody.
Was this a game changer for the American-African relations?
Mikhail Margelov:They are developing with quite a good speed. President Obama is active with his African agenda. The US is doing what China, the EU, Turkey have been doing for the last, at least, ten years. Russia now is facing a very serious challenge. All the other players are already back in Africa. The Russian companies are working actively on the African continent, but on the political side I think we have to do more. And the American example should speed us up.
We should call for Russia-Africa summit. We should develop different projects in Africa. We are doing a good thing, for example, with BRICS but it is not enough, we have to do more.
David Ochami: Most people in Africa, from where I sit, are not really amused because it is not the first time that a major economic power has gone out to invite the African leaders, irrespective of their economic and human rights records to their capital, and then come out with the whole range of promises.
In this particular case, the kind of promises that the US has made for Africa are not really impressive, because the full amount of money that was promised is smaller than the size of the Kenyan economy or budget.
The Western economies at the moment are on the retreat and it may take time before they actually recover enough to foster progress for the African economies to benefit from it.
So, let’s wait and see what will come out of this. Except for the promise to assist countries like Kenya in fighting terrorism, much of what happened is what has happened before. The level of trust has not increased or decreased by this summit.
What are the main outcomes of this summit?
Andrei Fyodorov: Politically, it is quite significant, especially for Obama. But, frankly speaking, let’s not exaggerate its results. First of all, in the past there were a lot of economic plans for Africa from the side of the US and they didn’t work for many reasons.
The second thing is that in comparison to China, for the US the political element of Africa is sometimes much more important than the economic. For China the situation is totally different. China is interested in the agricultural and natural resources, and it doesn’t matter too much who is in power. From this point of view, in some cases America will simply waste their money.
And the other problem is that Africa always costs a lot for everyone. It is not a cheap deal working in Africa. And the problem is also that in the majority of African countries there are no normal conditions for economic work. And it hurts, first of all, the American and European business. And once again, the Chinese business can work under any conditions. I think that China will overtake the US in Africa in two or three years.
Andrei Urnov: America is pursuing the policy of maintaining and strengthening its leading position in the world. In this context Africa is an important part of this policy. On the other hand, America has a very keen interest in the economic ties with Africa, because Africa now seems to be rising.
Africa, on its part, is interested in cooperation with the US because it is a rich country, it is prepared to invest. Of course, everybody has his own interest but there are some points of contact which can be exploited by both parties.
To what extent do you think Obama was able to deliver his message?
Andrei Urnov: First of all, I would like to say that the summit can be assessed as a success of the American foreign policy. They did strengthen their positions and their influence on the continent.
As far as China is concerned, China is the major rival in Africa. So, the US, with its claim for the world leadership, cannot just give in. And the fact that they’ve gathered so many billions for the further investments shows that they are in earnest.
Obama is trying to emphasize that the cooperation with the US is more beneficial for Africa, than the cooperation with China. And the main point they are making is that China is just pumping out the natural resources. But this is not correct, because China is also investing much into the infrastructural development of Africa.
Time will show, but now I think Africa is in a rather classical position of being able to balance between the two and to get as much as possible from both.
